THE RETURN OF JEZEBEL JAMES: Parker Posey as Sarah in THE RETURN OF JEZEBEL JAMES episode "The Return of the Crazy Jackal Shilelagh Lady" airing Friday, March 28 (8:30-9:00 PM ET/PT) ON FOX. Cr: Eric Liebowitz/FOX
Ran on: 03-12-2008
Sarah (Parker Posey) is a successful children's book editor who can't have children in &quo;The Return of Jezebel James.&quo;

Photo: Eric Liebowitz

THE RETURN OF JEZEBEL JAMES: Parker Posey as Sarah in THE RETURN OF...

To begin with, though "Gilmore Girls" had a wonderful early run, it suffered steep creative declines brought on, one can assume pretty confidently, from Sherman-Palladino believing too much of her press. A gifted writer of snarky, fast-paced comedy but, more important, blessed with Lauren Graham as a lead actress, Sherman-Palladino was able to make "Gilmore Girls" a real revelation on the WB in 2000. It was fresh, inventive and brought a new kind of mother-daughter relationship to television (the mom, played by Graham, was really the child, and the entire thing had a hipness that extended from the pop culture references to the soundtrack). But the more successful the series became, and the more acclaim Sherman-Palladino (who's prone to super-funky attire, including wacky hats that scream "trying way too hard" instead of "eclectic") got, the worse the show got. Ultimately, "Gilmore Girls" spun out of control, and the final season was done entirely without Sherman-Palladino before the show was canceled.

But, in the television business, once you're a talent, you're almost always a talent - the three-strike rule being a close but not definitive example of how often you're given chances after failing. So Fox liked Sherman-Palladino's script for "The Return of Jezebel James" and then, incredibly, the filmed pilot as well.

Pilot aimed at women

That pilot was supposed to air tonight after "American Idol," which would have given it a huge boost. Instead, the pilot will air Friday. That's not altogether bad news for the show because women are the target of this series, and Friday nights are geared toward women.

The problem comes with the actual pilot. Not many women will want to come back after seeing it because the first 30 minutes are a complete and utter mess. Not only that, but the pilot is also pointless because by the second episode (at least the one sent to critics), everything's different. The main hook is there - Sarah (Posey), a successful children's book editor, can't have children, so she asks her estranged sister, Coco (Ambrose), to carry it for her - but most of the other details vanish.

For example, Sarah appears to work for a book company owned by a semi-grumpy woman with a cute granddaughter. In the second episode, she works for HarperCollins (which apparently bought or ate the lady and the kid). Also, in the pilot, Sarah lives in a cramped, homey place - left alone there by her boyfriend, who seems to have gone gay. In the second episode, she lives in a huge, hip loft and there's not much mention of a boyfriend. In the pilot, we meet Sarah's "no strings attached," "no talking about personal issues" man friend Marcus (Scott Cohen), who might be a lawyer. In the next episode, he'll be Sarah's "boyfriend" - and also her colleague at HarperCollins.

Yes, a lot changes from pilot to second episode (if Fox chooses to actually air that as the second episode or at all). But there are some positives, too: The second episode sent to critics is much better than the pilot, which upgrades the show from unwatchable to watchable, but not exactly interesting.

The problem, unfortunately, appears to be that Sherman-Palladino both wrote and directed the pilot. In it, she manages to make Posey chew more scenery and act more painfully daft than anyone could imagine, given Posey's many creative film triumphs. Where Sherman-Palladino directed Posey to be scatterbrained and flippantly witty, it just came off as ditzy. (In one scene, we're supposed to believe that not only has Sarah lost one of her high-heeled shoes and barely noticed but also that she was wearing them on the wrong feet most of the night. That's not charmingly eccentric, it's stupid.)

The Posey element is rectified, thankfully, in the second episode, where she's more likable, funnier, less scattered and better able to deliver the goods.

The presence of Ambrose as Coco is a welcome relief in the late minutes of the pilot, and she continues to be strong in the second episode. Unfortunately, that's not enough - mostly because the pilot does immeasurable damage to your willingness to return, and once you do, it's an entirely new series. And not one ready to earn your forgiveness. That's probably why Fox cut the episode order of "The Return of Jezebel James" from 13 to seven and moved it to Fridays.

It's tempting to think that if Fox had just redone the pilot, or killed it, the fixes we see in the second episode would make a better show. The tonal shift is remarkable, with Posey being funnier and more confident, Ambrose playing the little sister as a slacker counter to Posey's uptight, successful editor. That's the hook, is it not? Two very different sisters who have barely spoken through the years are brought together in this contrived birthing situation. Not wholly original, but Posey and Ambrose could nail the material if it were right.

But it's not, and "The Return of Jezebel James" (a reference to Coco's imaginary friend from childhood) never connects.

So what can we take away from this failure analysis? For starters, a series that seems funny as a script can go terribly sideways if the direction is bad and the star is asked to do something she's not fit for. Second, the responsibility of the network rests in fixing what it couldn't see on paper - but what it should have plainly seen in the pilot.

Fox's fixes unacceptable

An argument could be made that Fox did fix the show going forward, but its decision to air the original pilot despite its barely matching the next episode in look or tone is just not acceptable, even if you want to play the fiscal card. It looks as if "The Return of Jezebel James" was a casualty of the writers strike. Fox didn't want to pay to reshoot the pilot because it lost faith in the series' potential (which is also why it cut the episode order).

Since the network is going to win the season anyway, why not burn off the series as is? Who knows, maybe it'll work, right?